In patient care, one concern is the possibility that a patient will fall out of bed or chair, or attempt to exit a bed or chair before they are able and injure themselves or otherwise move to a position that compromises their care or safety, for simplicity these conditions will be collectively referred to as a “dangerous condition” herein. Consequently, extensive efforts have been made to monitor a patient's position and prevent them from falling or exiting without care giver supervision. Efforts have been made to prevent such dangerous conditions from occurring by alerting the care giver.
One method includes attaching a string to the patient's clothing and connecting the string to an alarm. Once a threshold tension on the string is achieved, i.e., when the patient moves beyond the range of motion permitted by the string, an alarm sounds alerting care givers. As will be appreciated, this system is limited to warning the care giver only after the patient has moved beyond the permissible range, and, thus, may only warn a care giver after the patient has gotten out of or fallen from the bed.
Another known system employs multiple load cells, within the bed frame, that are located at positions around the patient to determine the patient's center of gravity at any given moment. In this way, the patient's position may be accurately monitored providing warning to a remote care giver as the patient approaches a dangerous position. In this way, the system may prevent a fall by providing earlier warning to the care giver.